oldtype

Club won't see a massive uptick in shirt sales in Korea, and neither will Sports Direct. Sick and tired of this silly stereotype. You know this for sure like? Well, I can only speak for Korea in specific, but here it goes: Signing local players to raise your profile in an Asian country was a good strategy around the early-to-mid 2000s, when most people were just getting into European Football and didn't really have team preferences. Premier League clubs signing high-profile Asian players instantly raised interest in the PL in those countries, and fans naturally gravitated towards the clubs that had those players. Man United struck gold with Park Ji-Sung, for example. Then time passed and European Football stopped being a new and shiny thing. Almost everyone who would potentially be interested has already tried it out, and out of those, most of the casual fans who just started watching because everyone else did have already moved on. The people who are left now have clubs they've been supporting for 10-15 years. The people who started supporting Man United just because of Park yet stuck around have now lived through a full generation of players past his retirement. They aren't going to be picking up and leaving for NUFC just because we signed Ki. Signing a Korean player is not going to get you a significant uptick in the Korean market unless you are one of the "big clubs" from the early 2000s that already have significant pre-installed fanbases that would be galvanized with a new local signing. That's Man United, Liverpool, Arsenal, and maybe Chelsea at a push. I have never seen a Swansea shirt in Seoul. Ever. I've only seen a Spurs shirt maybe two or three times. Spurs have had two players who dwarf Ki in terms of popularity - YP Lee and Son, and they're also much closer to being a "big club" than we are. I'm sure some people will buy a NUFC Ki shirt (I probably will ) but it will be nowhere near enough to represent a significant increase in club revenue. I'd be surprised if you could even get a NUFC shirt in Korea this year unless you put in some effort looking for it. If you want a real "Park to Man United" level uptick, you're probably going to have to sign some dude from a country that's never had a PL player before (maybe China works, since it's been a while for them.) To summarize: we are not backwards lemmings who know nothing about football that just flock mindlessly from club to club based on newly-signed familiar names. The "average" Asian football fan at this point may have been supporting their club longer than some of the younger local posters on here have. Kindly fuck off with the antiquated "Asian shirt sale" nonsense. PS: also, good luck trying to sell a shirt with a Chinese betting site on it in Korea. The only thing us East Asian countries can ever agree on is that we hate each other forever.

Club won't see a massive uptick in shirt sales in Korea, and neither will Sports Direct. Sick and tired of this silly stereotype.

Definitely has attitude. Always had a reputation as a troublemaker (mostly maturity/anger management stuff), although he seems to have settled down a bit after getting older/married. If I remember correctly there was a big scandal a few years ago because he had a secret Facebook account he used to slag off national team coaching staff.

So not sure anybody cares to know about our new signing to this detail but I've missed talking about football so I'll just keep writing. Ki is a very interesting player from a tactical standpoint because of the odd combination of skills he brings to the table: (1) Above Average ~ Good work rate, stamina, physicality. (2) Very Good ~ Great at hitting connective passes when he's in open space and not under pressure. So there's two ways to use him depending on which skillset you want to leverage. (A) He can be played in a more advanced role where you leverage (1). He'll run from box to box, cause havoc, get into good positions, maybe occasionally score from range or hit a great pass or cross when he's not being marked. There's a little bit of peak NUFC-form Joey Barton in him if you use him like this. (B) He can be played as a deep, roaming playmaker where you'll getting full mileage out of (2), sitting right in front of the defense and moving side to side more than up and down the pitch. This way you're utilizing his passing ability 100%. His best pass by far is drifting off to one side and getting the ball in transition and then hitting it out to a winger in space on the other side, and he'll get to do a lot of that playing this position in a pressing, counter-attacking style. He has great stamina for a deep playmaker type so on defense he can ably fill gaps and mark leaking players even if he's not going to win the ball that often. Personally I think you get a better player if you go for option (B), because you're leveraging his best skill. On the other hand, you basically have to commit to a midfield three where your rear-most midfielder is not very good at winning back possession. This is a more atypical style and honestly he's not good enough of a player (in the PL at least) to build your team around him like this. Option (A) makes him completely plug-and-play. He'll be a decentish squad player where you can just throw him into whatever 4-4-2 CM pairing and forget about it. For the most part, (A) is how he's been used in his best PL seasons. In some cases, managers have gotten lazy and dumped him in as the more defensive-minded CM in a midfield two because he's big and strong and runs around a lot. If you do that he's just not a very good player at all. I feel like Rafa has the ability to line us up in a formation where we keep a good shape and defend even without a dedicated defensive midfielder, so if that's the direction we're going he has the chance to exceed expectations. More realistically though he's a good squad signing that will be fine but unexciting for us starting sometimes and coming off the bench in others.

I think Shelvey is more dynamic in offense, Ki is more physical and covers more ground. For what it’s worth, a lot of Koreans think his best role would be as a deep roaming playmaker or even Libero in a back three. Really need to make sure he’s not under too much pressure from defenders closing down to fully leverage the passing ability. Recall he was decent with Shelvey as a midfield pairing in Swansea.

I think Shelvey is more dynamic in offense, Ki is more physical and covers more ground. For what it’s worth, a lot of Koreans think his best role would be as a deep roaming playmaker or even Libero in a back three. Really need to make sure he’s not under too much pressure from defenders closing down to fully leverage the passing ability.

Should age well too. Never been reliant on athleticism.

Pros - Fantastic passer of the ball over distance. Was already the best long-passer I had ever seen live at age 18. - Not much of a goalscorer but has a great long-distance strike when he has space around the box. - Typical Korean work ethic. Covers lots of distance when he's bothered, uses his big body to push around smaller midfield players. Cons - Despite his passing ability, never really developed the vision and composure required to see the whole pitch and destroy defenses with his passing. I thought he was going to be literal Pirlo when he was younger, but he's not really someone who's going to deliver Cabaye-esque killer passes in the flow of the offense. More somebody who can pick up the ball in his own area and distribute competently to forward players when he has plenty of time and space. - Doesn't really defend at all now despite starting his career as a central defender. Too slow and lumbering (particularly when changing directions) to keep up with most Premiership attacking players. Doesn't like tackling that much unless he's looking to send a message (and get booked in the process). - Sometimes prone to outbursts and disciplinary issues. Not a dirty player per se, but can get out of control at times.

Welcome back. Hope to see you at Chelsea away! Haha, falling out of love with football is something I might get over. Being married now is the slightly more challenging obstacle.

It’s funny that’s this happens after I’ve more or less walked away from football. He’s a youth product of my local club and I’ve seen him play since he was 18. Probably my favorite player at one point but now he mostly represents loads of squandered potential. Decent player, but I thought he was going to be a world beater. The “shirt sales” thing is just a silly stereotype. I’ve never seen anyone wearing a Swansea shirt in Seoul in my life and NUFC is already well known enough in Korea that this isn’t going to affect things either way.

Fuck this twice as devastating as yesterday was.

Come on Poland!! Senegal and Colombia need to tie I guess.

Didn't he get sacked from his club for it? This is somehow a true story. Was that racist twat owner who used to run (still runs?) Perugia.

https://twitter.com/wonjae_twt/status/1012022516607602690 Uh, sorry America, I guess we have new allies now.

Very good The last time the Germans crashed out in the group stages was 1938. In 1939, Hitler invaded Poland.

There are more than one of those videos doing the rounds on Twitter. In Russia, Mexico City, and Los Angeles, all over the place. It's nuts

You’re welcome guys.

It can’t be disappointing when you don’t have expectations

Viewing angles were so bad in the away end I couldn't even see it. For a second or two a bunch of people just assumed that it had gone out for a goal kick, couldn't figure out why the Chelsea fans were gasping.

Can I take a moment to comment on how absurd it is that a picture of me from SEVEN years ago is still somebody's avatar This forum that day, evening, unreal Greg literally passed me by on the street and shouted out "oldtype?" Nobody will ever believe it.

Can I take a moment to comment on how absurd it is that a picture of me from SEVEN years ago is still somebody's avatar

Takes a few years for all the kinks to be worked out of this sort of thing. Eventually the decision times are going to get much faster and they'll get a better handle on which decisions should be reviewed. I wouldn't be looking to throw things out just because it's not working well immediately.

South Korea's chances aren't even worth talking about. This is the worst team we've had since 1998.

Been there? Heard so much good about Russia (or at least Moscow and St Petersburg), or is this just some ignorant opinion based on what you've read online? Russia is an abhorrent country that does horrible things to its people. It’s also the worst possible spot for an international sporting event given its well recorded history of state-sponsored cheating. If you can ignore all of that I suppose it might be a nice tourist spot, but I have no interest in it whatsoever. I don't disagree, but feels like double standards. Not gonna litter this thread into a political thread however. As a sporting event I think it will be great, especially since their state-sponsored cheating won't mean anything in this sport. You did see the draw, right? I did. Every World Cup there's a few weak groups. Let's be honest, the real reason you're not interested is because you think South Korea will come out of this with 0 points. I think you've guys got an ok chance of going through to the next round. Both Sweden and Mexico are underwhelming teams, they're good, but nothing special. The most corrupt rich country in the world walked into a draw organized by the most corrupt organization in the world and walked away with the weakest group in modern World Cup history. How confident are you that nothing shady happened? These guys made Donald Trump President man, you think they can't mess with some ping pong balls in a draw being held in the goddamn Kremlin?

Been there? Heard so much good about Russia (or at least Moscow and St Petersburg), or is this just some ignorant opinion based on what you've read online? Russia is an abhorrent country that does horrible things to its people. It’s also the worst possible spot for an international sporting event given its well recorded history of state-sponsored cheating. If you can ignore all of that I suppose it might be a nice tourist spot, but I have no interest in it whatsoever. I don't disagree, but feels like double standards. Not gonna litter this thread into a political thread however. As a sporting event I think it will be great, especially since their state-sponsored cheating won't mean anything in this sport. You did see the draw, right?